Stay at home parent looking forward to retirement

[Equalitystreets]

One partner is and has always been the sole breadwinner.

Other is a stay at home parent who as the children have gotten older has gradually had more free time during the day.

They always share the household chores equally.

When the children go to University, the stay at home parent has said they will be retiring and ‘they can’t wait’.

The partner with the job has at least another 15 years of work to do (and all their retirement funding will come from this partner’s investments, or investments set up in the stay at home parent’s name that were set up and funded by the working partner).

Is the stay at home partner being reasonable to declare their job is completed when the children are 18, even if the other partner has another 15 years of work to do?

This is definitely the best solution. I mean what is the SAHP retiring from? The don’t have a job and nobody retires from being a parent. It’s a lifelong commitment, a job you can never retire from. It would be fair if the SAHP now took on 100% of the household chores/errands to ease the load on the working parent. The chances of anyone finding a decent job after taking 20 years out of the workplace are pretty slim anyway.

Why does the SAHP only do a share of housework? She should be doing all of it. Even when children were younger she had the whole of the working week to deal with looking after the house. It's hugely unfair the working partner was doing a full time job and apparently 50/50 of housework too.

It would be fair if the SAHP now took on 100% of the household chores/errands to ease the load on the working parent.

That would have been fair from the outset. Working full time and doing 50% of household chores was really unfair on the working parent.

For me the load should be shared equally so SAHP should now be getting a part time job and ramping that up when kids go to uni. If they refused quite frankly I would divorce them because they are not willing to contribute to support themselves and their family which is selfish - partners don't watch each other struggle whilst sat on their bum at home.

Yes the SAHP should get a job. Even if it’s low paying. I’m surprised they haven’t already. I also think SAHP need to ditch this idea that they have facilitated the working partners career. Plenty of parents both work and have succeeded in the their careers. A SAHP is not an essential requirement for this. You can’t retire from being a SAHP as it is not a job.

You get a foot in the door job and work your way up. Rationalising doing nothing is the lazy option. If the ex SAHP refuses to work then its time to separate finances and have your salary paid into your own account.

The SAHP actually hasn't been a SAHP in a long time. You are only a SAHP in my eyes if you are looking after young children all day. If you have teenagers, you're just unemployed and using the ''SAHP'' thing to avoid working.

I would've resented this setup years ago and the ''SAHP'' talking about retiring would've pushed me over the edge.

Retiring from what? Unless this is a cutesy way of saying they’re retired from being a SAHP once the children have all started full time school, because that’s the only time they have to do anything more than a working parent.

Personally SAHP needed to start looking for a job years ago. No need to wait until the kids went to uni.

This sounds familiar, are you both women by any chance?

They need to get a job, they sound lazy

Interestingly - We are the opposite to your scenario! My husband and I earned equal salaries when we first married, however his career really took off and he has soared into a very well paid position. Due to this, we both agreed there was no point me working when babies came along and I was a SAHM for a decade.

Fastforward to all the kids being at school and my husband desperately wanted me to continue being the Housewife, not return to any work… So that I could do so all the housework, carry the mental load, all the school runs, be around for all school holidays, kids sickness, iron his shirts etc. So that he could continue his job without having to worry about anything else. However this was not the life for me!

So we had to find a compromise we could both agree on. It’s taken us a few years to get the right balance. Our three kids are 10-14 now and I work 20 hours per week. My husband would still prefer I didn’t work, but he understands I need it for my mental health, to feel like an equal partner, to feel like I contribute to the family. He has slowly started doing a few household chores, does a couple of school runs a week, does some laundry, takes the kids to some of their evening clubs/sports etc….. but I obviously still do the lions share since I work less. And we are both now happy with our current set up.

I only earn a little over minimum wage. My husband earns over 10 times per hour than I do! So there really is little point me working financially, but I want my husband to respect me and not feel like I am lesser than him. I want him to see us as a team. I don’t want to be his hired help support human…. as I know his respect for me would diminish over time.

It sounds like your wife feels differently than me - she loves being a housewife. So I suggest you need to calmly talk to each other about finding a compromise that you can both be happy with. Could you suggest she starts by working 1-2 days a week and see how she finds that. Her confidence in finding and holding a job has probably been hit by so many years out of the workplace. She will likely need you to help her search and to boost her confidence.

Gently explain to her that you want to feel like a team, that you are both contributing (even if her income would be far less than yours). It’s not about the money I imagine, but feeling like you are not being taken advantage of. She needs to see that resentment is starting to build within you and that is not a good scenario for either of you - resentment is the destroyer of marriage. I hope that if you can explain this all to her calmly, without it feeling like an attack on her, that she will be able to see your point of view and make some changes.

@Equalitystreets

I’m the ‘SAHP’, but still have my career as I’ve been able adapt it to school drop offs, picks ups and school holidays. I do most housework, I also do a voluntary role.
SAHP is a job, and managing a house is a job.
Having free time doing nothing is actually pretty depressing. What are the plans for the retirement? I’d say the volunteering role I do is incredibly rewarding, needs people, does a lot of good work in the ‘background’ that the participants don’t see and would need someone exactly like your partner!

There are also lots of part time jobs out there - which may not be highly paid but give a routine, role and social aspect to each day,

This was the situation with my mother in law. As kids got older her role became more and more finding things to buy for the house (expensive things). FIL divorced her after 2 years ( but I think kindly didn't fleece her). He paid her NI as he put her down as an employee / director (even though she did not have anything to do with the business) but she gets state pension.
She was pressuring FIL to keep work so she could living to what she was used to and this wasn't his plan at all
Some what tragically FIL is now marries to another woman who has trapped him in exactly the same situation and he is pretty much forced to work to pay for debts that she has insisted on and an expense lifestyle he doesn't actually want.
So if your relationship does end don't get married again OP !!

That’s actually untrue.

I have several friends who are SAHPs to 3 school-aged children. They collect them at 3ish, then spend a full 6 hours (as they go to bed much later as they get older) supporting them with reading/homework, cooking their dinner, transporting them to and from swimming/gymnastics/brownies/play dates, often at completely different times/venues for different children, along with all the extra washing from their sports kits.

Their DP’s are not doing the same. They often arrive home at 8pm from a very demanding day at work, and many aren’t even home at all in the week as they partially work in other UK locations or even abroad. So their households actually couldn’t function without a SAHP during the primary school years.

I imagine this lessens by secondary school, once children can walk/cycle alone more places without other parents judging you if you do try to let your child walk anywhere by themselves much earlier (which I absolutely hear Year 4-6 parents doing in the school playground).

What a joke. I’d be telling her (i assume) that she needs to get a paid job now. Unbelievable for her to assume she is retiring and you’re working your arse off for another 10-15yrs. You need to be blunt, and say that you want her to get a job.

Tough one. I think YANBU but it might be a difficult one for you both to navigate.

As others have said, a lot will come down to what you agreed when it was first put into place but realistically I can imagine it being one of those things that worked at a particular time based on a loose premise ("now the kids are here I'll stay at home and support them/the household"), and it's only now that the difference in expectations is coming out.

This is massive source of resentment between my PIL. One gave up work at their own initiation before the first child was born, went back for a few years when the youngest was finishing school. However, when the other parent was forced into early retirement the former SAHP said they were done too even though they were a long way off retirement age and would need to rely on the other parent for a pension.

Worth trying to have an honest conversation about it and the challenges you both see as for PIL the issue is just festering in the background. All the best.

Even a small part time job would be better for them than staying in the house all day. Only has to be for a day or two.

Of course they could. They’d collect DC from afterschool club and drop off at clubs on the way home. Our afterschool club used to walk some kids to the local brownies / cubs, then parents picked up from there. Working parents still do all that you’ve listed in the evenings aswell. Both parents would have to pull their weight. Your friend could easily work during the school day, or until 5. To say their household couldn’t function without a SAHP is rubbish.

This is the second mention of investments made by your income. Isn't that how your set up works though? You can't exactly 'invest' childcare and household activities- it's a labour for the family that allows the children to be looked after physically by one parent, while the other looks after the family financially.

What were you expecting to happen OP?

She hasn’t worked in forever. There is no career for her. She would likely find it very hard to get a job.

if you want the benefit of long term SAHP, with the destruction of their career and earning potential this involves, you don’t get to turn around and demand they get a job after 20 plus years out of the market.

And what is this ‘I’m funding the retirement through my investments’ nonsense. You are married, it’s family investments. And you surely realised, when you happily took on the role of sole provider, that your contribution to the family was solely providing, and that would include retirement, as your wife had no opportunity to build up her pension due to being a SAHP?

The part where you are justified is begrudging doing half of household chores ( if this is true, you may think you do but you don’t). The SAHP should be doing all, or very near all, household chores, at least once the kids are in school.

But other than that, what is happening now is surely what you expected to happen?

Some with older children may continue to stay in the house because they provide care for their own elderly parents, or their in-laws, or both. I juggled caring for my FIL and running his household with my toddlers, and will happily do the same for my Mum in the future.

@OutandAboutMum1821you just described mine and my OH evenings with 2 school aged children and between us we work around 80hours per week and bring in £150k. I’m yet to hear what a SAHP does that a working doesn’t.

Again, these are things being done by working parents too. I work full time, I am not presented with a bathed, fed, homeworked and brushed child at bedtime who I have to do nothing with, in a spotless house with nothing to sort out outside work. If I had the hours between 9 and 3 free every day in term time I’d have a hell of a lot more free time.

And what’s the person in the OP going to to be retiring from? Most retired people still have to do their own cooking, cleaning and “life admin”.

So after school club is picking up their duties then. Not all schools have them or are close to them. Not all parents choose to use them, not all children want an even longer day/even more time away from their own family. My children discuss a great deal with me daily on our walk home from school/whilst having a snack, I wouldn’t swap that time for the world.